Despite clear assurances that there would be no delays, CD Projekt Red has today announced a third delay to the release date of Cyberpunk 2077. This time, the delay is less than a month, pushing the game’s launch date from the 19th of November to the 10th of December. The delay comes three weeks after the news that Cyberpunk 2077 had gone gold.
Cyberpunk 2077 Release Date Delayed For a Third Time
Earlier today, CD Projekt Red issued an official statement on social media announcing the new Cyberpunk 2077 release date delay. “Today, we’ve decided to move the release date of Cyberpunk 2077 by 21 days,” the statement reads; “The new release date is December 10th. Most likely, there are many emotions and questions in your heads, so, first and foremost, please accept our humble apologies.”
According to the statement, which was written by Adam Badowski and Marcin Iwinski, Cyberpunk 2077 is indeed ready to release. However, they cite the challenges of releasing 9 versions of the game at once – while working from home – as the primary factor. “The biggest challenge for us right now is shipping the game on current-gen, next-gen, and PC at the same time,” they state; “which requires us to prepare and test 9 versions of it […] while working from home. [….] We’re aware it might seem unrealistic when someone says that 21 says can make any difference in such a massive and complex game, but they really do.”
Additionally, although Cyberpunk 2077 has gone gold (meaning that it’s complete), the pair state that this doesn’t mean that development has halted. “[…] it doesn’t mean we stop working on it and raising the bar quality. On the contrary, this is the time where many improvements are being made which will then be distributed via a Day 0 patch. This is the time period we undercalculated.”
Serious Questions Should be Asked of CD Projekt Red
Of course, today’s statement does beg the question why CD Projekt Red was prepared to announce that the game had “gone gold,” when the development team were clearly still working on testing and improvements. Additionally, the statement highlights a clear lack of internal communication. As recently as yesterday, the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account has offered assurances that there would be no more delays. Yesterday, in response to a fan query, the account tweeted; “Full confirmation” that the game would launch on the 19th. Evidently, today’s decision was made by the studio management at extremely short notice.
Hopefully, fans can wait patiently for another 21 days for the eventual release. It’s safe to say that hype has only grown in the last few months. As such, while this delay is disappointing, it’s unlikely to quell interest in the release. However, CD Projekt Red should also be prepared to have a serious internal review of their scheduling post-launch. In the span of one year, Cyberpunk 2077 has had its release date delayed no less than three times.
Of course, COVID-19 is certainly a more recent factor which has contributed to delays. However, it’s far from the sole factor at play. (Indeed, the first two release date delays came before COVID began to spread.) Throughout this time, staff at CD Projekt Red have been forced to endure mandatory crunch to meet release dates; something which the studio heads had previously promised would never happen again. (To assuage concerns after crunch occurred during the development of The Witcher 3.) The studio’s management need to assess why this happened and work internally to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.